Matt D

My favorite match of the C2.

Now I wish they had gotten the Fantastic Four instead. Can you imagine a movie for each rogue? Silver Surfer, sure. Doom, sure. But then Mole Man gets his own movie where he has to find love. Diablo gets his own origin movie with aristocrats and alchemy. The Mad Thinker with a big Dragon Man third act. A Jailbreak movie with the Frightful Four. Red Ghost something something monkeys.

You can't watch anything on ad-supported Netflix without being bombarded by Raw ads. We see at least 1-2 an episode on whatever we're watching. We've seen a few things on ad-supported MAX this last week and it was the same car commercial and Maggiano's commercial over and over. No mention of AEW.

They need to do a bench press angle for it.

Treadmill is back online. The 22 year old and I (he did most of the heavy lifting to be honest) worked it out for the most part. We'll see how long it lasts. Some of these I watched a while ago so let me try to get my memory going. 3/11/88: Inoki/Murdoch vs Fujinami/Kimura: EDIT: Went back for this one quickly. It was a rematch of the finals from December (and a way for Inoki/Murdoch to get their win back). I think this was non-title. Fujinami/Kimura attacked Murdoch to begin with a double dropkick and controlled for a few minutes. Murdoch tried to fight out of the corner but kept getting swept under until he reversed a whip and hit an early calf branding. They went back and forth for a while including a very good Inoki vs Fujinami lock up that felt like a big deal. Eventually they took over on Kimura's arm. He got a hot tag to Fujinami and they tossed Murdoch off the top when he went for calf branding again. The dragon sleeper and then inazuma leg lariat both got broken up by Inoki and Murdoch ended up getting a roll up out of nowhere for the win. Good, larger than life stuff. 3/11/88: Takada vs Hase: The best juniors matches from 87-this point in 88 start with an ambush of some sort at the bell. Here it was Hase nailing Takada at the bell and then killing him with a clothesline. Remember, he was avenging a loss here. Takada working from underneath was some of the most emotive I've ever seen him and it all leads to a huge moment where he just smacks the hell out of Hase off the ropes. Great stuff. And it doesn't really look back from there either. Them having such a heated (and one-sided) beginning means that you can do the momentum shift and then build to a comeback where things are finally even and it worked great with Hase ultimately surviving after both guys missing off the top. This was one of the better juniors matches of this era. I clipped a few key moments below. 3/11/88: Choshu/Saito vs Billy/Gary Gaspar: Gary is Tyler Mane. Billy is Bob Orton. Gaspars had cool red lightning bolt like lines on their masks here. They charged the ring to start but Saito and Choshu had their number early. Billy finally made the save for Gary and they took over. They took over on Saito for a bit. Choshu saved him. Honestly, this went back and forth like that for a while. Orton's stuff all looks great like usual. Mane is clunky but game. Choshu and Saito have their doubleteams, which gives them the edge, and have them set up for the win before the Gaspars use their swords to destroy Saito and Choshu makes the save. 3/14/88: Inoki/Murdoch vs Billy/Gary Gaspar: Gary looked pretty solid here actually. His strikes aren't great even if he's starting high and swinging low, but he did a lot of other things well. He stared this and had a great test of strength with Inoki who was making all of his best faces, then an elbow off with Murdoch. Then they did heel miscommunication before things settled down to heel control. Another inconclusive finish overall with Inoki having an advantage but Billy coming in with a chair. Murdoch saved the day and made challenges after the match. The gaspars had less interesting hockey masks only for this one. I've got Inoki's test of strength fight below: 3/14/88: Choshu/Saito/Kobayahi vs Fujinami/Kimura/Koshinaka: We come in with them beating on Fujinami. Fujinami fires back but eats a Choshu back suplex. Fujinami makes it to Kimura who tires to box Saito's face only to eat Saito suplex. Usual stuff from these guys with the double and triple teams in the corner. Kimura catches the foot on a spin wheel kick and Koshinaka comes in. He runs into a foot (but gets the Butt butt only to end up in the wrong corner) and we get the longer extended heat. Kobayashi is definitely working the hardest out of the gusys on his side. Eventually, there's a comeback and Kobayashi accidentally hits his own partner and Fujinami finishes him with the Robinson Backbreaker, which alongside the Dragon Sleeper is the new move for 1988 for him. this was fun as you'd expect.

I was about to write something about Ospreay anyway. I'm not saying that prompted me, but I did want to flesh out my World's End thoughts, which I did here.

You guys will just have to take my word for it but (Mighty) John Quinn coming out to Manfred Mann's The Mighty Quinn (and they play the whole damn song as he just stands in the ring waiting for Pat Roach) in 1981 Hanover Germany is definitely something. I don't know what, but it's something.

I think they wanted to write off Darby first.

I was enjoying Ospreay/Okada until they went into the finishing stretch/50-50 in the 2nd quarter of the match. I'd have been happier with Will catching his leg on the ropes and Okada working it over for another 7 minutes as a second heat before a huge comeback/finishing stretch. I get that they were trying to mimic the NJPW style but it would have been a much better match with an epic comeback anyway.

I would have liked Fletcher vs Ospreay more if Kyle continued the woundwork all the way to the 3rd lawn dart attempt instead of them doing the earlier comeback/chop exchange. Everything else could have been the same. More focused approach with bigger pent up energy and comeback. Ricochet didn’t wrestle with the confidence of the Darby match. Past just a couple of inspired moments, he gave people the exact match he thought they expected out of him vs Okada. Maybe Okada not being a clear face hurt but Fletcher pulled it off earlier in the C2. A shame. Will see the third later.

I've been informed that I'm not allowed to skip Okada vs Ospreay so I'll watch that thing in the next few days.

Did anyone read the Barry Horowitz book yet?

She could have only become this given full freedom and no mandates. Anchoring ROH was the best thing for her. She’s going to almost certainly be challenging Mercedes at All In on a stadium show as one of the tip matches. Given how she was previously used, anything she did in WWE would be a downgrade.

I think the holidays ate most of us up. I'm playing catch up now. Shield vs Wyatts from Paul. I haven't seen this in YEARS. I remembered the beginning and ending but not the middle, especially not the second quarter. It starts wild with an atmosphere you'd never get from a WWE match with people excited even before the lock up. Then it actually goes to All Japan style hierarchy exchanges where each wrestler gets to go up against the other as the cycle in pretty clean singles. I wouldn't say too much of this stands out. You'd get the Roman vs Bray faceoff. Cole was especially annoying going "The Architect of the Shield!" or "The Hounds of Justice!" like he was a video game voice instead of calling action while JBL tried to give weight to things and Lawler was just happy to be there. Eventually, Seth had his big moment, landing on his feet on a Harper German from the top and then hitting his dive. Since he doesn't hit the triple dives later, that would have been the time to do it. He comes back in with a springboard knee instead and the crowd goes nuts as he makes goofy faces. I think everything went wrong when they made him heel instead of Dean but he wasn't particularly engaging or believable in either role overall. Eventually he gets swept under and we get the face-in-peril, including knocking guys off the apron. Rollins works fine from underneath but I'd say the Wyatts' presence carries this part and everything breaks down with the hot tag including big sequences and the announcer tables getting thrashed. It all builds back to Wyatt vs Roman but Harper (I think) eats the spear letting Wyatt win. It's an incredibly complete match with big energy/feel/aura/presence/excitement in the beginning middle and end. It's honestly impressive that WWE was able to pull it off as much as anything else because it's so unlike much else from the company, basically ever.

I value wrestlers who are immersive and Angle’s intensity is all time great as half the equation. The other half is selling to create resonance though and I just refuse to go back to confirm my priors one way or the other.

I think things would be a little different if Darby didn't have a mountain ahead of him.

Really liked Ricochet last night. Big surprise.

We still don’t know if the old tv will have the PiP or not, right? *double post but trust me you want to hear Taz getting grumpy during the commercial breaks

We still don’t know if the old tv will have the PiP or not, right?

Let's run through the card, huh? Athena vs Billie: For a match with a year and a half of build it feels like it needed a few more weeks. Billie never had a clear face turn. She's a petulant heel who wasn't getting credit or attention from her bully cult leader mentor and had a hissy fit. If they did three months of Athena using her like Serpentico and her finally having enough, turning on her as she was trying to bully someone, reuniting with her mom, and having a clear babyface arc great. OR if this is leading to her snapping and becoming a worse monster as she beats Athena and Athena moves on as a tweener to face Mercedes, fine, but.... I'm just not feeling it. I think they screwed up the build. Velvet vs Leyla: There's no real hook here. Leyla's injury post the Diamante match didn't help. It's face vs face which doesn't help. There's just no personal issue except for "I'm better than you," which is fine except for that it's Velvet and Layla and there just isn't enough to either character to make this work. Even the face to face interview this week was just Grr! Grr! back and forth. Survival of the Fittest: Big dumb spotfest. What is there to say? Cage having an ROH title as part of the Murder Machines feels out of place honestly. They could give it to Mark Davis and basically save that dude's career. Lee Moriarty vs ???: If it's not Nigel or someone at that level, this will be a letdown. Got to be careful. You can't just trot out John Walters or something. I wonder if Matt Sydal is ready to return yet? Dustin/Sammy vs Righteous: By far the best build, some of the best build of anything in AEW all year. I worry about Sammy being effective in a double bullrope match but this should steal the show. QT vs Lethal: If they lean into shtick and feeling and QT wrestles this like the Big Boom AJ match then this will be one of the best things on the show. If they go workrate-y, then it'll just be some meaningless drivel. Mansoor vs Atlantis Jr.: I like matches like these for the TK ROH PPV randomness factor. This should be a lot of fun. I'm not sure if Atlantis is the right guy for all the tomfoolery but we'll see. Shibata vs Billington: A match! Should be interesting to see how Billington does. The pre-show all looks fun. I kind of wish they would make a trios with Silver, Bennett, and the GYV guy who looks like them. I bet Harley Cameron does something hilarious. The build for the Gates match has been good. I liked all the legwork in the Lee Johnson vs Kaun match for instance. I don't think I missed anything.

So you’re primarily excited for the Zero Hour.

Darby vs Will: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2024/12/aew-five-fingers-of-death-1216-1222.html?m=1

LuthorCorp instaed of LexCorp is such a weird shift. Anyway, the big sense I got from this was them saying.. "Yeah, it's ok. You can be earnest again. You can care. Come with us back into the light."

You know how this works, Paul. Get me something you want to see me write about. Natural's Choice.

@Curt McGirt First match here. Brand new find. Doc/Gordy vs Spivey/Furnas. Doc's got a chip on his shoulder and Furnas is happy to oblige. https://vkvideo.ru/video543863954_456240101 Let me know if it doesn't work for you.